Surviving Kairos
by serenphoria
Summary: The seal broke, and everything changed. / A Tsubasa gang introspective. Set in Acid Tokyo between chapters 128 & 135 /


**Summary:** The seal broke, and everything changed. [A Tsubasa gang introspective. Set in Acid Tokyo between chapters 128 & 135. Written before the Infinity arc was published.]

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**Surviving Kairos**

Syaoran watched the princess disappear beyond the horizon to collect Yuuko's payment. He hadn't protested. Not much. Not the way the other him would have. He had all the memories, but not the emotions that came with truly living and experiencing. _Just as well_, he thinks. Being detached allows him to be more rational. He knew his familiar face but unfamiliar heart would hurt the princess, but that's the way things are and will have to be.

Yet he wonders why it had been so natural for him to brush away her tears as she slept, and how it stung when the princess couldn't look into his eyes.

-'-

Sakura could feel her heart beat in her bleeding fingers and knees. The pain was sharp and blinding, like the ache from the gaping hole in her heart. _Syaoran-kun is Syaoran-kun_ she thinks stubbornly. Despite his cold eyes, despite knowing his true nature, Sakura is resolved to return his heart. Irrational, a part of her knows, but she chooses to believe that there is still humanity in that empty shell.

She has to.

When she was without her memories, there was only a numbing sense that she was incomplete. But now with the memories of the Syaoran-kun she's gotten to know…

Only with memory can there be betrayal. Only with memory can one mourn for what's lost. And this time without someone to mend her, she'll have to mend herself. For the first time (as far as she could recall), she'll be selfish.

Her kind and simple nature can't fathom the strife that chasing after an illusion will cause her real companions down the road. Had she known, her decision would not have changed. But her bleeding heart would have been torn all the more.

-'-

The silent landscape roared like thunder in his ears and his mind registered the throbbing ache and foreign blood in his body. Still alive. _Failed again, Fluorite._Fay had known, but he had kept Syaoran's secret because the boy's love, his smiles, however rare, were real. Syaoran had been more real than he can remember ever daring to be. But the feelings Fay had convinced himself he didn't have veiled his eyes and made him careless. He deluded himself into thinking that Syaoran could be real, that this make-shift family could be real, that there could be a happy ending, even if it wasn't his.

The hollow of his socket throbbed. _No,__**this**__is real._ The countless that will suffer because his spell didn't hold and Syaoran took his magic without taking back his own heart. The princess' pain, Mokona's tears, Kurogane's sacrifice.

_Damn him._ Fay's best wasn't enough, but he had hoped to redeem himself a little in death._Damn it._ When had he crossed the line? When did he ever give him chance to care? _Can I undo it?_

He'll try. All he could ever do was try. But, damn, it hurts to smile.

"Good morning, Kurogane."

-'-

Kurogane didn't realize he was capable of a lapse in focus. He had one goal: to return home—and everything else was just something to do until that happened. But just as he confronted the wizard about letting the children get to him, his companions have gotten to him as well. He never expected his own name to bite like it did.

But what's done is done and once Kurogane commits it's one hundred percent. That's just who he is. He'll be the rock to keep his companions from falling completely apart around him. No, his purpose hasn't wavered. Just…augmented. And there's nothing wrong with that. Kurogane knows exactly who he is and what he's going to do from here.

Still, Kurogane couldn't help but wonder if he had anything to do with the gaping hole under that blindfold or if he had been wrong about the mage the whole time.

-'-

"Mokona was upset."

Yuuko looked down at the little black Mokona, but knew he spoke of his sibling. "Yes, Mokona can feel what others feel."

"This time Mokona was upset for Mokona."

Yuuko smiled sadly in response and thought of the wayward travelers she had just spoken to._They seemed determined, those four._She looked at the egg in her hand, paid for in blood. _All for the sake of the future._

It was hitsuzen that had brought the group together and it was hitsuzen that had led them to this point. But here was when free will could turn fate's current…she had hoped. Instead, it seems that in the end their destination will be the same. Only the path has altered.

Perhaps that was hitsuzen too.

But she hoped she was wrong.

-'-

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**Author's Notes:** Kairos: Critical, opportune moment; the appointed time in the purpose of God.

Thanks for reading! Any and all thoughts/comments are welcomed and appreciated.


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